Ends tomorrow

The Lower Mainland’s newest online marketplace will open on Monday, April 28, when LikeItBuyItVancouver.com begins previewing a limited-time sale of everything from household goods to consumer electronics to cruises, travel, cars, gift cards and personal services.

Capacity crowd holds its collective breath as the 24-year-old delivers a remarkable routine in the face of great personal loss

Canada's Joannie Rochette cries after finishing her routine in the women's short programme figure skating event at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics February 23, 2010. Rochette's mother died just days before the start of the women's Olympic figure skating competition, Skate Canada said on Sunday.

Photograph by: REUTERS/Andy Clark
, National Post

Some stories write themselves, or so they say. Some feel too big for you when you sit down in front of a blank screen. I have known Joannie Rochette for many years and couldn’t imagine what she was going through — and like everyone else, was blown away by her ability to compartmentalize her mom’s death and still do her job on the ice. She was in tears and could only send the briefest of messages to the media, after her Feb. 23, 2010 skate, but luckily the Canadian team’s chef de mission, Nathalie Lambert, was standing 30 feet away from my seat in the press box when I was heading back to write, and she gave me the quotes that made the column.

• • •

There was no road map for the lonely territory Joannie Rochette had to cross Tuesday night.

No sports psychologist, among the many who worked with Canadian Olympians in the lead-up to the Games, could have prepared her for having the moment she’d waited for all her life arrive amid the terrible grief of her mother’s death two days earlier.

The capacity crowd at Pacific Coliseum would have gladly rushed onto the ice and carried the 24-year-old from Ile-Dupas, Que., through the two minutes and 50 seconds of her short program, but a figure skater must literally face the music alone, in the middle of a vast white surface, and try to carve something memorable out of the ice in the time allotted.

So Joannie Rochette stood there, letting the fans’ warmth wash over her, knowing that when it grew quiet, she would have to do this thing, all by herself.

And she did it all, every jump, every spin, every flourish to the Uruguayan tango La Cumparsita, whose lyrics begin: “The little parade of endless miseries ...”

Only when it was over would she let the grief take over, and she crumpled into the arms of her coach, Manon Perron, and wept uncontrollably while her marks came up.

On a night when Japan’s Mao Asada and Korean world champion Yu-Na Kim had pretty much brought the house down with back-to-back works of art — Asada with the Olympics’ first-ever triple Axel combination by a woman leading off what might have been her best-ever skate; Kim answering right back with her matchless combination of textbook technique and show-stopping artistry — there was little chance of Rochette equalling their firepower.

But she is right there for a medal, sitting third heading into Thursday’s long program, and with everything that must have been swirling through her mind, it was one of the most remarkable performances any Canadian skater has ever laid down.

Looking composed and focused as soon as she took the ice for warmup, nothing changed in her routine, and she opened with a perfect triple Lutz-double toe loop combination to show that her nerves were fully under control. She followed with a solid triple flip, then a double Axel, a wonderful footwork sequence, and emoted to the music and was rewarded with her season’s best score, 71.36 points.

She’s distantly in third, but also comfortably ahead of fourth-place Miki Ando of Japan.

“Words cannot describe it,” Rochette said, in quotes relayed through Skate Canada’s high performance director Mike Slipchuk. “It’s hard to be precise. I have no regrets.

“It was a very nice, warm welcome. Hard to handle, but I appreciate the support. I will remember this forever.”

Nathalie Lambert, the Canadian Olympic team’s chef de mission, had predicted “a wind of love” from the audience when Rochette stepped on the ice Tuesday, and she was not wrong.

“If she doesn’t skate, we’ll love her. If she does skate, and does well, we’ll love her, and if she does skate and doesn’t do well, we’ll love her,” Lambert told a reporter the other day. “And that’s the most important thing.”

But when the moment came, the result did matter. The crowd was pulling so fervently for her, she couldn’t have helped but feel it.

“I was thinking, ‘Please let it be perfect and let it be exactly what she is hoping for, and let the music finish before anything bad happens,’” said Lambert. “It’s a very tough week for her, the toughest of her life, it’s already something really hard to cope with just the stress and uniqueness of the Olympics – and on top of this, to have to cope with the grief … and from the first minute, I think she handled it extremely well.

“I think she wanted to do well tonight — both for herself and for her mother. As an athlete, you can’t get to the place where she is right now without the support of your family, and more often than not, your mother is your No. 1 fan, and this was very much the case for her.

“And so this was the Olympic dream for the whole family, and she just wants to live it. I think she held it together until she was finished, and then that’s the moment when you realize your mother was not there to watch it — and she came here for that. “

But if none of the possible outcomes really mattered to anyone else, once Therese Rochette passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, they still mattered to her daughter, who was awakened gently by her father, Normand, at 6 a.m. to tell her the awful news.

She didn’t want a free pass from the butterflies and the pressure. And she didn’t shy from it. She couldn’t have dreamed that the moment she had waited for all her life would be so big, and so complicated. But wherever she found the strength, she got the job done.

“When she took to the ice, she looked like the Joannie we’ve known and grown with,” said Slipchuk. “She was as good as she’s been all year. That’s just a testament to her, to be able to get herself in the right frame of mind, in the moment, and do it.”

And now that the dam has burst, and Joannie Rochette has finally let herself feel the pain?

“I think we all saw all the emotion that was in there, and this was a big step for her tonight,” said Slipchuk. “We’ve got a couple of days now. I know she’ll be ready for Thursday.”

View related Olympic Memories videos below from some of Canada's top athletes.

View video: Olympic Memories: Roberto Luongo — Gold, Men's Hockey

Roberto Luongo had an interesting view of Sidney Crosby's winning goal in the men's hockey final at the 2010 Olympics: he was in goal, at the opposite end of the ice.

View video: Olympic Memories: Kristie Moore — Silver, women's curling

The alternate on Canada's silver-medal winning women's curling team, Kristie Moore was five months pregnant when she competed at the 2010 Olympic Games. She was only the third pregnant athlete in Olympic history.

View video: Olympic Memories: Jarome Iginla — Gold, Men's Hockey

Sidney Crosby may have scored the game-winning goal that gave Canada gold in men's hockey, but it wouldn't have happened if not for Jarome Iginla, who set him up. The Calgary Flame reflects on the biggest assist of his career.

View video: Olympic Memories: Jon Montgomery — Gold, skeleton

Jon Montgomery became an instant hero in Canada when he won gold in men's skeleton at the 2010 Olympic Games - and drank from a pitcher of beer as he strolled through Whistler.

View video: Olympic Memories: Shannon Szabados — Gold, women's hockey

Shannon Szabados, goalie for the Canadian women's hockey team, describes what it was like to be on the ice as her team won gold at the Olympic Games.

View video: Olympic Memories: Patrick Chan — Fifth, figure skating

Figure skater Patrick Chan finished fifth at the Olympic Games but believes in retrospect that missing the podium may have made him a better skater today.

Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's gold medal performance so sweet, so perfect. In the nine Olympic Games since ice dancing made its debut in 1976, 17 of 27 medals ˆ and all but two golds, had gone to Russian, Soviet or quasi-Soviet teams.

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were the first North American team ever to win the Olympic ice dancing gold medal. The joined the very short list of Canadians who have ever come away from an Olympics with gold medals in figure skating.

North Vancouver native Maelle Ricker fulfilled a lifetime dream by winning gold in women's snowboardcross on her home hill, Cypress Mountain. She became the first woman ˜ and first British Columbian ˜ to win an Olympic gold medal on home soil.

View video: Olympic Memories: Kevin Martin — Gold, men's curling

Kevin Martin delivered the winning shot to claim gold for the Canadian team. Martin is among the greatest curlers ever as a four-time Canadian champ and holds world and Olympic titles.

View video: Olympic Memories: Jennifer Heil — Silver, women's moguls

Canadian freestyle skier Jennifer Heil has competed three times in the Olympics. In women's moguls she won silver at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, gold in Turin, 2006 and placed fourth in Salt Lake City, 2002. Heil recently announced she'll retire after this season

The opening ceremony was a highlight for Clara Hughes, one of few Olympians to have won medals in both the summer (cycling) and winter (speedskating) games, including a bronze in 2010 in 5,000 m speedskating.

She prefers to let fans try on her medals to wearing them herself. Groves talks about how Canadians cheered her and her pursuit team on, even after they were disqualified for finals. She won two medals in individual events at the 2010 Games.

Canada's Joannie Rochette cries after finishing her routine in the women's short programme figure skating event at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics February 23, 2010. Rochette's mother died just days before the start of the women's Olympic figure skating competition, Skate Canada said on Sunday.

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.